I was just lucky. The axis shock in the first turn made it possible to destroy red army troops just by right-clicking. After that, there was almost no resistance until Moscow. I found some static red army units south to the road from Smolensk to Moscow. A human opponent would definitely use those units to block the road in advance.

-Red Army -1 split your Armies as soon as they arrive. Recombine them in Winter when counter densoty increases. -2 empty Armies on trains are prone to evaporation if bombed. Keep them away from German bombers.

yeah I realized that in most scenario it's unusual to split units voluntarily so it needs to be stressed out. ...in EF this approach is used to model the improvement of the Red Army C&C from summer to Winter (split units have lower proficiencies). In a revised version Summer 41 Red Armies and German RR units will arrive 'divided'.

I like "Slaughterhouse" as a general overview better than Glantz - the maps are better and the short summaries of the war progress are easier to read IMO .

It also has a heap of biographical and unit info at the back that you probably do not need, but which does provide some interesting background as to how things went for individuals and various high level units (armies, Corps, divisions)

Playing as Axis in turn 3 Tallinn is now occupied by the germans with a garrison in it though my land troops have not reached it yet. I think it's so because I move the german fleet along the Baltic coast in order to spot soviet units. Is it a bug?

Playing as Axis in turn 3 Tallinn is now occupied by the germans with a garrison in it though my land troops have not reached it yet. I think it's so because I move the german fleet along the Baltic coast in order to spot soviet units. Is it a bug?

It's a feature (yes due to the Kriegsmarine flipping the hex and the Red Army abandoning the hex that allows entry into the Baltic). Iron Crosses for the valiant sailors no?

From wikipedia:

" Meanwhile, the Küstenjäger-Abteilung (or Coastal Raiders Battalion) performed many amphibious raids along the coasts of the Black Sea, the Baltic and the Sea of Azov. "

And yet the Küstenjäger-Abteilung is a land based unit in the game, and Axis sea-transport is set to zero...?? ;) Plus Tallinn was garrisoned by various Soviet forces up to and including the 16th Infantry Division - which was evacuated by sea at the end of August 1941

The wiki article on the evacuation says the garrison was the 10th Rifle Corps - other sources such as Charles Shap's history of Soviet Rifle Divisions specifically identify the 16th, which was in the area when the war started, and is listed in Glantz's "Stumbling Colossus" as an independent division (ie not part of any Corps) in the 27th army.

I doubt the Soviets are going to get to do all the 15,000 or so amphibious landings of various sizes they carried out either...but at least they do have some capability to do so :)

I might just take the Northern fleets out for simplicity or split one of the reserve units at start. Let me think about it. There is no Axis sea transport at start to avoid gamey things, especially vs the AI.

I had one question about the sudden death victory condition. In the description file, it says that

quote:

1941 The Axis players wins by ‘Sudden Death’ if he holds Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov and one of Grozny, Stalingrad or Murmansk at any time in 1941.

Will this event happen with probability 1 after the condition is satisfied? I occupied Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov and Murmansk on Turn 13 (09/14/1941) using Axis. But the game just continued as usual. Attached is the sal file at the beginning of T13.

I had one question about the sudden death victory condition. In the description file, it says that

quote:

1941 The Axis players wins by ‘Sudden Death’ if he holds Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov and one of Grozny, Stalingrad or Murmansk at any time in 1941.

Will this event happen with probability 1 after the condition is satisfied? I occupied Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov and Murmansk on Turn 13 (09/14/1943) using Axis. But the game just continued as usual. Attached is the sal file at the beginning of T13.

Hey Samurai! congratulations! Game vs human or the AI? Btw those are just house rules, there is no event chain that makes the game stop. I think it could be done with the event engine, but it's probably going to be complicated. Tx for sending the save file, I am collecting info for a future update!

I plan to make a public update around March 15th and at the same time make the game available on a few scenario depots.

There will be quite a few, but mostly minor changes based on new historical info and feedback from various PBEM games. Btw if you have any 'end of turn save' against a human opponent, especially after Turn 20, send them my way!

Re HQs: pioneers were combat units so I put them mostly in the frontline units. I will check the Army Group HQs to see if they have a realistic number of construction squads. The existing Rail Repair units give a pretty historical rate of advance for the Axis rail heads in 1941(remember to split them!) so I'd rather not change them. But yes the pontoon unit will also have engineering capabilities (at the moment it can't repair bridges..duh!)

After some playtesting and a lot of very useful feedback from other players (SMK, Jeff Norton and Carlos2012) I have updated the scenario to what it should hopefully be a stable version. You can retrieve the file at the top entry of the thread.

Changes in V2.0. The major updates are the increase in counter density for the Red Army (a few extra units and many Summer 1941 Armies arrive split in three), and a few map changes that should reduce the losses of Axis allies in Summer 1941 and make defending Leningrad a little harder. I think overall is a neutral update.

- Reduced fortification levels in the Kiev area and near the Luga river. - ‘Refugees events‘ have been used to simulated a longer Spring rain season. These events simulate rain patterns moving from the NW in the SE direction and increase the cost of movement along roads.

- Reduced fortification and supply levels for a few German cites.

- Kiev and Rostov are not Soviet supply points anymore.

- Reduced pestilence effects for the Axis during Blizzard. I have verified that historical losses were lower during Blizzard than during the Summer and Fall.

- Soviet partisans are now modeled with ‘Guerilla events’ only. There are no partisan units. This makes for a more realistic partisan warfare and avoids some gamey effects.

- Edited the TOE of a few Panzer divisions so that the first entry is the Heavy Rifle Squads (this makes it easier for those units to reconstitute).

- The 800mm German guns ‘Gustav’ and ‘Dora’ arrive in Spring 1942, rather than at the start of the campaign.

- Reduced strength of Axis naval forces in the Black Sea.

- A few early (light red background) Soviet armies return as Corps sized cadres when destroyed. This is to increase counter density and to simulate the formation of weak Soviet units from stragglers during the Summer of 1941.

- Most Soviet Armies scheduled to arrive in the Summer and Fall of 1941 arrive on map already split in three sub-units. When recombined their proficiency will increase by 25%. This approach has been chosen to increase counter density during the early stages of the campaign and to better simulate the improvement of the Red Army. Both players will likely feel necessary to broke down units to cover long stretches of the front. Remember that broken down units suffer a 20% non-permanent decrease of their proficiency (for example: from 80% to 64%). Proficiency goes up by the same amount when a unit recombine.

- Axis Rail Repair units start broken down in three subunits at the start of the scenario. When in good supply, each broken down unit has a 80% chance of repairing a damaged rail hex.

- The Axis Pontoon unit can now repair bridges (duh).

- The PO automatic rail repair capability has been substantially increased for both sides.

- The scenario description has been updated in places to include the above changes.

Regarding the events: The 'Sudden Death' Victory Conditions in section 7.1 are just 'recommended Victory Conditions to be applied at the end of every year' and have no Victory events associated with them (that 'd be a bit complicated). These conditions are meant to be agreed by players or as a reference when playing vs the programmed opponent, like in old style boardgames . I will clarify this in some future update of the scenario description document.

As far as I know the events work fine, but definitely send me a PM if you notice something going amiss and I will take a look.

Governato You should be paid for scenario desighn in my humble opinion but, only humble in my opinion. This scenario is definitely the best corps army scale simulation of the war I ever played. I have been playing on the eastern front since 1978 at all scales. Your work is the perfect blend of realism and playability.With that said I would like to commission another free work from you How about a yelnia scn at battalion level covering the entire period on something of a legit map. No one has really explored that battle all that much in games..Yelnia is thought by some to be a microcosm of the war itself in the way it progressed..reds are overrun, followed by active Russian pressure, followed by the german position behing smashed into the ground By Zhukov.All in the summer of 41 when things like that don't happen to the great whermacht The battle even came with tons of drama behind the scenes in the german staffs between hitler halder and guderian.The effect(fourth army badly mauled of at least one inf corp shortly before behing tasked with the Moscow trip) of it was only overshadowed by bigger disaters later. Fantastic stuff games are made out of.

Yelnia would be interesting, but you are in luck.. Matrix's 'War in the East' is coming up with an expansion that has the Yelnia battle in it (the whole Smolensk campaign at div/btn level). WITE is great, a bit too much of a monster to play the whole campaign maybe... Also if you check the 'Road to Moscow' thread you may find a version for TOAW. Hpt Kunz is a fine designer!

For Eastern Front my current plans are to post a mini AAR, make one more minor upgrade (I figured out how to include operational losses for tanks) and then send it to a scenario depot!

The great thing about this scale is its playability for the breadth of the Eastern Front. The downside of this scale is it accentuates the problem of the 3.4 RFC bug. I suggest people play with this house rule:

Units in Fortified entrenchment status should never use the Ignore Losses tolerance setting except formal garrison units or units in the hexes that drive major game events as per the briefing.

Units will unintentionally end up in Fortified status as they increase their entrenchment status but a conscious effort should be made by players to change these tolerances each turn. It will facilitate a fluid and entertaining campaign.

The great thing about this scale is its playability for the breadth of the Eastern Front. The downside of this scale is it accentuates the problem of the 3.4 RFC bug. I suggest people play with this house rule:

Units in Fortified entrenchment status should never use the Ignore Losses tolerance setting except formal garrison units or units in the hexes that drive major game events as per the briefing.

Units will unintentionally end up in Fortified status as they increase their entrenchment status but a conscious effort should be made by players to change these tolerances each turn. It will facilitate a fluid and entertaining campaign.

Ah, wouldn't that be nice to have v3.5? A lot depend on the particular game, but I have noticed that for the first two years of the campaign some of the quirks of the 3.4 RFC bug can be avoided if the Axis attacks using 'Minimize losses' and so taking advantage of most of the available rounds when on the offensive. For the Red Army this is not possible (a house rule prevents that to simulate their attack doctrine) and problems may surely arise when attacking stacks containing small, but high proficiency Axis units (the large units retreat, the ant fights to the death).

I have not tested it, but a milder, but hopefully still effective house rule could be:

Units of both sides BELOW DIVISION SIZE in Fortified entrenchment status should never use the Ignore Losses tolerance when stacked with other units.

SC, are you playing PBEM? Send me an end of turn if you have one handy, so I can see where this problem shows up. If it is consolation it often takes more than a month for units to achieve Fortified status and by turn ~ 85 in my HvsH test the front is still pretty fluid. Will see how it goes not that Ivan is growing some teeth...

On point 5 (page 12) you mention on last paragraph "The Axis can try to win the game by taking Leningrad (and/or Stalingrad) and Moscow before 1942 (...)"

On point 7.1 (page 13) we can read "1941 The Axis wins by Sudden Death if he holds Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov and one of Grozny, Stalingrad or Murmansk at any time in 1941."

Point 7.1 is very clear to me but it seems that point 5 contradicts it.

If Moscow and Leningrad are mandatory to be taken and Stalingrad is just optional (upon 7.1) in what way can we understand "Leningrad (and/or Stalingrad)? This way it appears to me that Leningrad and Stalingrad can be an option to each other.